the these qualified ladies came to my mind in the first ten seconds. it's not like we have a lot of other options. the gop has no commitment to belief that america is better when the corridors of power look more like the rest of america. mr. president, we know you have got our back on protecting us from unequal pay, back alley abortions, and transvaginal probes, but you're really letting us down here. we, the women of america, got you re-elected. all right. that does it for us here at "the cycle." martin, it's all yours. >> a true, true crystal ball. it's thursday, january the 10th. ladies and gentlemen, the nra has come to the white house. >> the gun debate is raging. >> later i meet with the nra. >> freedom is not a handgun on

the hip of every teacher. >> work it into the prom them. enchantment under the siege. >> no one needs ten bullets to kill a deer. >> that cheesy grin. >> little 6-year-old kids riddled with bullet holes. >> that joe biden just can't wipe off his face. >> president barack obama is considering taking executive action aimed at limiting your second amendment rights. >> could only be to take guns away from people. >> i don't quite understand why everybody would be afraid. >> it has been enough. >> the nra, which wants to be feared and respected, is not respected and should no longer be feared. >> i agree with wane lapierre, you, sir, are [ bleep ] in the head. ♪ >> another hectic day in washington and just ahead we'll have more on the president's cabinet reshuffle, including the nomination of jack lew to lead

the treasury department. but, first, it is target tuesday. that's the day when vice president joe biden says he'll present his recommendations on preventing gun violence to the president. biden made the announcement as he met with hunting groups and gun advocates, including the nra. and he said a con shen sus is emerging over proposals such as expanding background checks and banning high-capacity magazines. >> you all know this is a complicated issue. there's no singular solution. but there's also things we know. we know that there are certain actions we take that have diminished, have diminished the extent of the gun violence that otherwise would be occurring in the united states. >> indeed. that violence is continuing apace even as mr. biden addressed the media. news broke of a high school shooting today in taft, california. a 16-year-old victim air lifted

to a hospital, now in critical but table condition with the alleged shooter, another 16-year-old student, in custody. police say the student interrupted first period class armed with a shotgun. a grim addition to the litany of violence we've taken to tracking over the last 24 hours. in columbus, ohio, a man shot and killed early this morning. in st. petersburg, florida, an 18-year-old died when friends tell police he accidentally shot himself in the head while showing off a gun. in baltimore a man was shot in the leg after answering a knock at his own front door. all of which is to say reasonable, responsible action on gun violence cannot come quickly enough. unless, of course, you're rush limbaugh. >> which is more real, the republicans war on women or the democrats war on gun owners? people on the left want to take people's guns away from them.

they have said that they want to do this. >> the always colorful mr. limbaugh wants to talk about what is real, and so it seems does the vice president, as he concluded his remarks today with a moving reminder of why these discussions are happening right now. >> little school kids riddled, not shot with a stray bullet, riddled, riddled with bullet holes in their classroom, and i think we can do a great deal with that -- without imposing on the rights of the second amendment. >> we'll let you decide which is more real. here in new york msnbc political analyst david corn, who is of "mother jones" magazine and msnbc contributor joy reid, managing editor of thegrio.com. it sounds like the vice president is considering a comprehensive range of recommendations. he spoke of high-capacity

magazines. he spoke of intensifying background checks, but he did not mention semiautomatic assault rifles like those used in sandy hook, aurora, and oregon. what do you conclude from that? >> well, i think we can wait until tuesday to see what actually is on the list. of course -- >> why didn't he mention semiautomatic ar-15 rifles. >> it's a difficult policy question to figure out how to define these things and ban them in a way that worked. 1994 bill clinton passed a ban on assault weapons that was completely, you know, riddled with loopholes and had no real policy impact. it was a tremendous political win and we should talk about that, too, in terms of how obama moves forward in trying to win gun control -- gun safety legislation on the hill, but in terms of trying to figure out the policy end of it, getting it right may take a couple more days. i'd like to see something like that, but you got to do it right because last time it happened, they paid a big political cost

for it -- >> without very much in rush return. >> the great philosopher ted nugent has offered this, there will come a time when the law-abiding gun owners of america will be the rosa parks and we will sit down on the front of the bus, case closed. how could you draw a parallel between firearms and rosa parks? >> you wonder why he wasn't willing to sit in the back of the bus that was carrying young men to the draft back in vietnam. >> that have anything to do with the fact that he lost control of his bowels? >> and apparently that kept him from being able to wield a gun. that aside and ted nugent being a ridiculous individual, and by the way, people who are second amendment advocates should understand letting ted nugent talk is probably as dumb as having wayne lapierre be the

spokesman for your cause or maybe -- >> alex jones. >> these guys actually do harm to the cause of people who want reasonable gun control but who are also very pro-second amendment. these guys talking is not helpful. >> right. david, then ra's wayne lapierre has made it clear that the only answer to the proliferation of firearms in america is more firearms, and we know about his pathetic press conference and reaction to newtown, but is it not the case, and you know this because you spent a lot of time on the hill, is it not the case that the nra inspires greater fear in republican congressmen than a democratic president? >> it also inspires great fear in democrats in certain rural districts and conservative districts. >> right. >> and after they passed the assault weapons ban in '94, they had the '94 elections, and democrats -- and some of those districts were defeated largely

because the nra was able to whip up their members in a frenzy. this is a classic political science case study of an interest group that is very intense and cares almost about this thing alone. on the top list of concerns, guns are one through ten, against a public that cares about this and a lot of other things and whose attention may wax and wane depending what else is going on in their lives. they are very intense, they have a lot of money, and it's a good sign that liberal groups and groups like the mayors that bloomberg is supporting -- >> mayors against guns. >> are getting out there and trying to get their foot into the debate politically with donations but also this changing the dynamics because this can't go forward and succeed unless there's a strong coalition including police and citizens and public health advocates fighting as hard as the nra fights. >> eric holder, the attorney general, met with retailers

including the nation's largest seller of firearms, walmart, and some 250,000 survivors of gun violence have sent a letter with protests planned on tuesday to move them to stop selling these military-style munitions. to david's point, is there now the opportunity for consumers to have a real effect on this debate? notwithstanding the fact that republicans are cowering in the wake of the pressure that comes from the nra? >> absolutely. i think that the corporate radio ut is really the route to go because it's where you can get the most action. retailers like walmart are very sensitive to public pressure, to the notion that people might stop shopping at walmart if they don't change their behavior. even on the regoulatory end, its the liability end you can achieve a lot of change. if you were to say if you don't secure your firearms properly and a crime is committed with it, you're liable or if you were to say that retailers were

liable in the same way that other businesses are when they sell a lethal product, i think you would change behavior, but i think the idea of shaming a retailer into saying, listen, you shouldn't be selling semiautomatic weapons, partly it will drive that sale on line which is a danger and you have to deal with that, it will drive it underground, but i think it can be effective. >> do you agree with that? >> i think so. this is part of the history of gun safety. you go after one piece of it and they find another one. if you put them in background checks, they go to gun shows and they don't have background checks. if one state has strong restrictions on guns, they go somewhere else. so you need a national approach. you need to cover a lot of different sides of this, and you got to do it more or less at once. that makes it really hard but pressure on the corporations and say to walmart, really, how much do you need to make off guns? legislative pressure, pressure on the research front, and allowing the atf to do its

job -- >> it would be great if it had a director as well, wouldn't it? >> a lot of common sense steps. >> you can do something simple right now. if you deposit more than $10,000 in a bank, that triggers a report about you. >> absolutely. >> it goes to the federal government. >> but if you buy 10,000 guns, it's okay. >> we should look at the stockpiling end, too. >> we have breaking news because the nra have issued a statement and i'm going to read it. here is what they say. we were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the second amendment. while claiming that no policy proposals would be prejudged, this task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners, honest, tax paying, hard working americans. >> no one should be surprised. you know, when the nra -- >> do you think that was written before the meeting? >> i think you can find that statement from the files from

years past. >> yes. >> when they say you're taking our gun it's away from us, get your cold dead fingers off them, it's not just true about guns, restrictions on magazines, the type of bullets. they have opposed and fought every sensible measure. the only way this succeeds is over the body of the nra. >> all the solutions they propose happen to increase gun sales. all of their solutions are about finding ways to get more guns into the hands of-mile-an-hour people and this new little industry that's popping up which is training people to be a first responder in the classroom or a nurse first responder. all of that is an industry and the nra benefits. >> if you're a nurse, you can shoot and then you can treat. >> indeed. you have two hands. >> of course. david corn, joy r50ed, thank you both so much. coming up, will the man with the illegible signature get tough on wall street?

stay with us. >> jack assures me he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency should he be confirmed as secretary of the treasury. l, but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth!

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the next treasury secretary will be charged with implementing two hugely important aspects of the president's agenda. defending entitlements against republican attacks and properly policing wall street. and according to the president this afternoon, jack lew is just the man for the job. >> i trust his judgment, i value his friendship, i know very few people with greater integrity than the man to my left and so i don't want to see him go because it's working out really well for

me to have him here in the white house, but my loss will be the nation's gain. >> joining us now is jonathan alter, a columnist for the bloomberg view, and in washington jared bernstein, a senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities. welcome to you both. john, congratulations on a very severe haircut which i must confess i approve of. >> hard to respond to that. >> well, don't. i have been reading a lot about mr. lieu, it seems he's either a socialist liberal according to republicans or a wall street apologist according to progressives. which is he? >> well, obviously he's neither one of them. what he is is a long-time, talented public servant who has been working mostly in government since he started with tip o'neill, actually joe moakley, he knows the federal

budget better than anyone in washington. this is. >> john baoehner would say come to a meeting and don't bring lieu because he knew he was running circles around him. you remember in early 2011 when they almost had a government shutdown, the republican thought they had cut all of these social programs and after the deal was done, they found out lew had outfoxed them because lew being a progressive democrat and having confirmed that over many years is committed to protecting these vital social programs. so he did work briefly at citibank, but he's not a creature of wall street and it's just a distortion to say that he is. >> jared, one thing i have heard said about the man is he is concerned about the poor, and he's committed to the poor. now, you and i have often talked about the absurd budgets

proposed by paul ryan which are so callus it's hard to use another word to describe them. >> jack lew has been very suk s sesful and if anybody can, jack can. if you look at the paul ryan budget, what you see is literally a transfer of trillions of dollars over the ten-year budget window from programs that help low income people to tax cuts for rich people. this is the robin hood in reverse on steroids. jack lew recognizes that one of the critical roles for government is protecting economically vulnerable people. now, that doesn't mean he won't put some spending cuts on the table and they may even involve entitlements but you can bet the vulnerable retirees and the people who depend on the safety net at times of market failure will have a very strong ally in jack lew. >> to that point, many people

have suggested in the past that there's been a revolving door that goes from the treasury to wall street and back again. is this man part of that coterie or is he very much and firmly in the public service camp? >> it's much more in the public service camp. i read this morning a critique of the choice of jack for treasury secretary by some financial markets guy who is saying, i don't know, he's not one of us. >> right. >> now, when i hear him say he's not one of us, i sort of think the same thing i think john alter said when he heard john boehner say, i don't want to negotiate with him. that's the guy you want at the table. >> republican jeff sessions, the ranking member of the senate budget committee says, i'm quoting, jack lew must never be secretary of the treasury. sessions has suggested he may filibuster the nomination. >> we need to know why mr. lew not only refused to produce a

plan that would fix our debt problem but actually attack people like paul ryan who laid out a credible plan. >> i'm sorry to address a broken record with a broken record, but the paul ryan budget lost in the last election. >> slight detail. >> did that not happen? >> right. well, the republicans want to pretend like the election never took place. >> even now. >> we had a test of whether people wanted the ryan budget. that test showed that the american public stuck with barack obama and jack lew, who is his chief of staff. so, you know, jeff sessions, interestingly used to be a democrat. >> yes. >> if he can -- if he wants to try to lead a filibuster, we will have the mother of all battles in washington. it will make the chuck hagel nomination look like nothing because this guy, jack lew, is

in the heart of the obama administration, and he represents barack obama better than basically anybody. not only did they correct when he was white house chief of staff and budget director, but their values are aligned, and so this would be going right at the president who, as jeff sessions knows, deserves to have his own people in the cabinet. this whole presunmps that you object to somebody that's a brilliant nominee just because you don't like his politics, that's not the american way. >> welcome to the republican party of 2013. jonathan alter and jared bernstein, i wish we had more time. thank you. coming up, a memo to mitt romney. the car guy. >> i drive a mustang and a chevy pickup truck. ann drives a couple of cadillacs actually. with the spark cash card from capital one,

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i saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, jeep now owned by the italians, is had thinking of moving all production to china. >> now, here is an interesting coda to one of the most interesting moments to the 2012 battle for the presidency. in the dying days of his desperate campaign, mitt romney started airing an ad which claimed that jeep was moving manufacturing jobs to china. and all because of the president's auto bailout. politifact voted that its lie of the year. jeep has just reported its biggest sales since 1999, up by double digits in all parts of the world. that includes asia, where sales nearly doubled in 2012. you see, chrysler is building more in china, but that's because they're selling more

there. just like they are here in america. romney, of course, may not know that because as soon as the election was over, he purchased not an american vehicle, but a german designed suv made in slovakia. i can only assume the reasoning behind that purchase echoes a slogan once used for the jeep grand cherokee. go where regrets can't follow. stay with us. the day's top lines are coming up. constipated? yeah. mm. some laxatives like dulcolax can cause cramps. but phillips' caplets don't. they have magnesium. for effective relief of occasional constipation. thanks. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'.

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is the same frequent heartburn treatment as prilosec otc. now with a fancy coating that gives you a burst of wildberry flavor. now why make a flavored heartburn pill? because this is america. and we don't just make things you want, we make things you didn't even know you wanted. like a spoon fork. spray cheese. and jeans made out of sweatpants. so grab yourself some new prilosec otc wildberry. [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. from the donald threatening to sue the comedian to the boys club of pennsylvania avenue. here are today's "top lines." what is diversity. >> i have a very important personnel announcement to make. actually i'm just kidding. i will go right to the ap.

>> the color of his hair a and the color of an orange orangutan are the only two things in that i tour of the same color. >> if he doesn't pay the money, we'll probably sue him. >> corn ball brother, no the really out for our cause. i am so tired of that. >> of what is he going to say next, obama, he's not black enough? is he not white enough? >> here is a bulletin for espn. >> who is the name of this network again? >> no feminist watch you. >> we're not going to be hiring you. >> good. >> there was so much about the war on women from the obama administration and how the republicans were to blame. >> i don't want to be commented upon because of my looks. >> what in the hell is diversity. >> all the women are being replaced by men. >> i believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship. >> the president of the united states simply promised women contraceptives and abortions. >> can you tell me if john kerry is right for the job. >> yeah.

>> a chuck hagel right for the job? should we discriminant. >> janet napolitano h susan rice. >> an african-american woman completely pushed out of the way by republicans. >> it's embarrassing as hell. >> brought us whole binders full of women. >> of two appointments to the supreme court, both of them women. >> guys golfing with him, guys playing basketball with him. women have complained quietly about being excluded at the white house. >> the record speaks for itself. >> let's get to our panel now. msnbc political analyst karen finney while slouching but now isn't, and msnbc contributor goldie taylor joins us. karen, what's your view to the apparent lack of diversity in the president's cabinet as he moves forward? >> on the one hand i was disappointed in the picture, but

i do feel like we need to wait and see what the full complement looks like and as others have pointed out, there are women in the cabinet, he has put two women in the supreme court. overall in the first term he's had a stellar record. at the same time though, martin, my bigger point here is i think we need to take the bigger picture. this is not just about who president obama appoints to his cabinet. we know this country has changed demographically and a broad coalition of voters elected this president, but i think we should hold everybody accountable for making sure there's diversity. while i was disappointed to see thus far we haven't seen the kind of diversity i hope we will see when we see the full picture, i think there's a much bigger question and a much bigger issue here to which this president has been, you know, a champion of making sure that the doors are open for everybody. >> right. okay. goldie, the president's enemies, who aren't exactly famous for their love of diversity, are making a huge production out of this issue, but this president

has done better or at least as well as his two immediately predecessors. he has a 50/50 split of men and women in his staff and he's appointed two women to the supreme court. doesn't that in itself regardless of the current presentation of the cabinet, doesn't that indicate a commitment to diversity? >> it certainly does, but, martin, i am much more -- much less concerned about the look of the cabinet than i am the shape of this president's policies. i think that it's important to add that presidents like george walker bush had people like gz and rice and jackson and page in his cabinet, all cultural minorities and women alike but all very, very dangerous to diverse communities. so i don't think it's necessarily about head count. it's about how you open opportunity at every level of an organization. it isn't just about those 15 cabinet members, but it's about the employment practices of the entire organization. diversity inclusion has a number of measureses.

it's about employment practices, yes. it's about how you recruit, motivate, retain, and promote women and minorities but also about expanding opportunities in underserved communities. it's about fighting, really fighting against the war on women by providing equal access to health care and all of those kinds of issues. so i think you have to measure the president on the toe tality of his record rather than the 15 people sitting around him at a table. >> and to that point, some of the people criticizing this president are some of the people who were behind the most racist voter i.d. laws we have ever seen in one of the big he is attempts to try to disenfranchise minority voters. this group of folks can't even get the violence against women act passed because it would protect immigrant women, lgbt women, and native american women. we're seeing personhood bills being reintroduced. it's a little rich to be hearing it from that side, but again that's part of why i think -- i agree with goldie, let's look at the policies, not just the

picture, but also let's remember that this has got to be a bigger, broader conversation in this country. >> it's also worth repeating, is it not, that the president's cabinet wouldn't have had so many men if he'd been able to appoint susan rice and she was the victim of a neomckcarthyite witch hunt. >> it mains me that many, many, many of the people who are, you know, shouting at the president about cultural diversity today were the same people who attempted to block susan rice. >> absolutely. >> some of those people were silent about susan rice on the left. so i think i have pains for the right and the left on this. i think the real issue today is, you know, if you look at the president's cabinet and those people who are closest to him, those people who have the most influence, someone like a valerie jarrett, i mean, i think that speaks volumes for how this president -- what this president's vision is about and

how he expects to execute on that vision. >> yes, indeed. karen, if i may, in fact, to both of you, i want to show you a picture of the white house press corps who was grilling the spokesman about diversity. >> it is the truth that in most news rooms in this town the picture is going to look more like that than the kind of diversity we would want to see. again, that's why i keep coming back to this point. there is a bigger issue here. the bigger issue, and that's pasht of this why president's policies matter so much, it's not just about who is in the white house but also what policies are being passed that ensure that pathways are available to african-americans, latinos, lgbt women, disabled, you name it, that the people who are able to advance based on their talent are not held back by any box checking here or there, and i think that ultimately serves the country better and, yeah, we've got a

lot of work to do as that picture demonstrates. >> indeed it does. karen finney and goldie taylor. thank you both so much. coming up, confirmation battles dead ahead and republicans are waiting to pounce. stay with us. ♪ ♪

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i'm up next, but now i'm singing the heartburn blues. hold on, prilosec isn't for fast relief. cue up alka-seltzer. it stops heartburn fast. ♪ oh what a relief it is! if confirmed, the president's new cabinet will feature three men who have been shaped by military service and service in government. the trio of john kerry for secretary of state, john brennan for the cia, and former senator chuck hagel for the defense department would be unique in that both kerry and hagel are vietnam veterans who have had firsthand experience of war. so what will this mean in terms of how america will approach military conflict in the future. jonathan capehart is an msnbc

contributor and an opinion writer for "the washington post" and jimmy williams joins us from washington and is an msnbc contributor. john, when the president announced his pick for defense secretary, he made an important reference to how chuck hagel understands the notion of war. take a listen to this, john. >> chuck knows war is not an abstraction. he understands that sending young americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that's something we only do when it's absolutely necessary. >> it sounds like chuck hagel is going to be a million miles away from the idiocy that we heard throughout the republican primaries when people like rick santorum and mitt romney would try to outdo each other in terms of their desire to start a military conflict with countries like iran. >> right. it was almost as if they were basically warmongering their way through the republican primaries basically promising a third war for the united states when the people back home, democrats and

republicans, were completely tired of war. the president is clearly in that statement, what he's saying is very clear. chuck hagel is someone who knows war, who has gone to war, who knows the sacrifices, the costs of war, and who will not advise the president to go into a war without weighing the serious consequences of making that type ofjimmy, john is right, isn't he, isn't the republican objection to chuck hagel fundamentally that he maintains might might be described as a healthy skepticism about deploying american troops overseas. as hagel himself once said, there is no glory in war. >> don't forget mitt romney said that he liked having a strong military, we needed more ships and barack obama's reply to that was he was living in a 1950s

america. what republicans have a problem with is they're like a 1950s defense department, air force, navy, marines, and army and that's not suitable for the 21st century. we need better intelligence capabilities, smarter planes, smarter drones, if you will. we need a way to figure out how to send less of our men and women into harm's way. that is how we should go into war going forward, and that is something hagel agrees with. the republicans hate him because he doesn't agree with their 1950s idea of what a war should look like. >> jimmy, if you like chuck hagel in terms of his policies in relation to military conflict, i have to ask you, what's your reaction to some of the criticism about him potentially being someone who may be homophobic? >> well, listen, i worked in the senate when he was a senator, and he was a very conservative senator. i worked with his staff. they were pleasant, he was always very pleasant to deal

with. he was who ut a doubt a conservative nebraskan senator. i did not like his views on gays and lesbians. he has since changed his view. if the senate puts him in and confirms him over the department of defense, he will have to implement the end of don't ask, don't tell and make sure that the spouses and partners and significant others of our gay men and women in the military are treated with equality and with respect. just like we treat those who are not, who are heterosexual. so he will have to live up to that test. i suspect that he will do that. he has said that he will do that, and i trust that he will do it. if he doesn't, then i will be wrong. >> john? >> martin, look, president obama would not have nominated chuck hagel if chuck hagel was not in line with him on this particular issue and on the president's policy descriptions for the pentagon. so i am not worried about chuck hagel, about what he said 15 years ago, especially since he has since apologized and has

made affirmative statements. >> yes, he has, indeed. now, john, john brennan has 25 years of service at the cia. he's expected to be questioned rigorously on the issue of torture or enhanced interrogation techniques as they're known by some. does this present mr. brennan with some real challenge given his oversight of enhanced interrogation techniques under the previous administration? >> well, i mean, since he was there in the previous administration, if the senate wants to ask him those questions, then, yes, they will provide some discomfort for him, but remember when president obama came into office, it was he who said we are no longer doing this. this is not who we are as a country, and so if the senate wants to litigate past battles that even the president of the united states doesn't want to litigate, then that's on them. >> okay. final question to you, jimmy, how do you think his leadership, mr. brennan's leadership, will

differ from that of the outgoing director, leon panetta? >> panetta was a creature of congress, a member of congress from the california delegation i think for over 20 years and then he went to the white house, the clinton white house, and so brennan has never been a member of congress. he has been inside on the executive branch for a very long time. so i suspect that they will approach it from very different ways of looking at it. a former member of congress who goes over there and tries to build consensus, i think brennan is seen by the career folks over at that agency as more of an insider. and so i think they would probably welcome him more as one of their own. >> jimmy williams and jonathan capehart, gentlemen, thank you so much for your contribution this afternoon. >> thanks. >> much more ahead. first, sue herera has the cnbc market wrap. >> good afternoon. let's tell you how the dow jones industrial average ended up today's trading session. it was an upside day by 80

points for the dow. the standard & poor's participated in the green as well, up 11 points and the nasdaq composite up almost 16. that's it from cnbc. we're first in business worldwide. martin is back after a quick break. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. well, up 11 points and the td a.

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mr. president, what kind of force would you like to see left in your country after 2014. >> i was told by the organizer of the senate to keep quiet. >> thank you, everybody. >> that was afghan president hamid karzai fielding a question sort of from our very own mike viqueira. president karzai is in washington this week for talks

with top lawmakers on capitol hill. we just saw him there getting a nice pat on the hand from republican senate leader mitch mcconnell. tomorrow he meets with the president at the white house. let's join kristin welker. kristin, looking forward to tomorrow's meeting with hamid karzai, what are the president and the white house hoping to get out of the afghan president? >> reporter: well, good afternoon, martin. i think, first of all, the issue that mike viqueira brought up is going to be a key topic here, which are troop levels. the white house earlier this week signaling that they would be open to withdrawing all residual troops after 2014 or even having a smaller troop presence there than initially thought. that will undoubtedly be a key topic of conversation between president obama and president karzai and they will really be meeting to assess the situation there, the training of afghan forces. of course, that is a big part of the drawdown process right now, so they will be talking about

that, touching base on that issue, about you again those troop levels will likely be key. an important point, martin, i don't expect them to come out with a resolution. we don't expect to hear specific numbers at the end of tomorrow. what we're expecting is more of an update. we expect president obama and president karzai to give a joint news conference which is customary when a foreign leaders comes to visit. i think that's what we're hoping for, but again no specific troop levels. >> and you don't think there will be any specific number either shared and agreed on or disputed? >> reporter: well, i think they're going to be talking about numbers, but the white house has signaled don't expect this to be signed, 150e8d, and delivered after tomorrow's meeting. is there a possibility for that? certainly, because i think that is going to be the key topic of conversation. at this point in time, the plan is for them to give an update on status and not necessarily the specifics about what the troop

levels are going to look like after 2014. >> now, in another news, kristin, we're learning that pastor louis says he will not give the innovation at the president's inauguration one week from monday. can i ask you, are we now in a position where a minister must choose between his understanding of scripture whatever that is and what is required politically? >> i think that there's no doubt that the white house, the inauguration committee, saw this as a political problem when they became aware of his sermon back in the '90s in which he made comments which some found homophobic. they basically decided that it went against their opinions. now, having said that, they stress the fact that this was, in fact, reverend giglio's decision to withdraw from the inauguration committee but certainly the committee being very clear about the fact that his comments run in stark

contrast to the beliefs of this white house and this administration. as to the question of who is going to replace him, who is going to step in and fill his shoes, that has yet to be answered, but remember, martin, back in 2008 when rick warren delivered the benediction. he came under a lot of criticism for comments he had made that some people also found to be homophobic. so it is possible that the white house, the inauguration committee, trying to avoid that type of scrutiny this time around. >> kristin welker, as always, covering all the bases for us. thanks, kristin. >> thanks, martin. >> and we'll be right back to "clear the air." [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still "stubbed" up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] it doesn't have a decongestant. no way. [ male announcer ] sorry. alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose.

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and lock in your rate for 12 months today. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? it's time now to "clear the air." even the white house has offered an opinion on the injury suffered by robert griffin iii who plays for the washington redskins but fell apart on

sunday. >> i'm not a football coach, but it sure seemed like as remarkable a player as he is, he wasn't in a position to continue playing. >> the president's press spokesman was referring to this moment in the fourth quarter when the man universally known as rg3 failed to control the ball and saw his right knee give way. and this latest incident only adds to the ever-growing medical history that now surrounds rg3's right knee. in 2009 while playing for the baylor bears, the sophomorer to his anterior cruciate ligament. his acl was reconstructed in. in concentrating our attention on his right knee, we may be in danger of ignoring something altogether more serious. we've just learned that a team of medical scientists analyzing the brain of junior seau who committed suicide last year found that he'd been suffering from cte, a debilitating brain condition caud